Magnificent milestones

I’ll come back to Clubfoot, Part 2 later. It’s time for a post filled with only good things, as my Little Guy has had a great week. For the readers who don’t know me, this post also brings a name reveal because it includes a video of Little Guy writing his name. It’s too wonderful not to share, so now I’ll have fewer letters to write when I write about him.

I could never say enough good things about Magna Doodles. They are the chalk-and-slate of the 21st century, and all of my kids have had their first drawing successes using one. Little Guy is no exception. We have been playing a game for months where he brings it up to me and I draw his face, including glasses. Two days ago, for the first time ever, he drew the face himself. The results are outstanding:

Another exciting thing he did that day was when reading a book. He put his finger under the words and “read” them, including the word “Elmo,” which was one of the words on the page. He also does this with Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Green Eggs and Ham. In the latter, while I was reading it to him that day, he said the word “be” before I got to it. In a typical child, I would chalk all these up to normal reading development, but in my Little Guy, it’s incredibly exciting. These plus the fact that he can recognize every letter in the alphabet are very encouraging to me. They mean that not only will he have the ability to learn to read, he might even learn to read at the same time as his peers. What is becoming apparent to me is that he has an incredible intrinsic motivation to learn, and it fills me with pride for him.

At school they help him write his name on every project that comes home. So now he has started trying to write his name on the Amazing Magna Doodle too. Here’s the best so far:

So there you go–from this point forward Little Guy will be known by his actual name of Kyle.

And here, the most amazing video yet, and the one I am most proud to share with the world. Kyle writes his name (not legibly, but he says the letters as he “writes” them) and then draws a picture of Mommy. My heart could burst.